Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

Female follicle says to sperm: invade me! invade me! i want to be an egg!
http://www.drstandley.com/bodysystems_femalerepro.shtml ..

Sperm:, What's in it for me?

Follicle: You will live longer.

Sperm; Ok. Done. I'm in, we are as one.

Follicle now thanks to the sperm (not sure how long the sperm exists as a sperm after creating an egg) says:

Oh thank you, now WE are an egg!!

Sperm?: Have i now lost my identity because i'm one with you?

Egg (ex follicle part): Lost mine too, we are one as egg now and listen
to this!!! Some of the alien outside world believe we are a person!

Ex? sperm part of egg: You're kidding.

Egg (exf): For sure! The pro-life personhood people!

~~~~~~~~~~
Pro-Life ‘Personhood’ Activists Escalate Fight, File Petition With Supreme Court

by Abigail Pesta Jul 30, 2012 6:23 PM EDT

The “personhood” movement steps up its battle to define human embryos as full-
fledged people with legal rights, thereby outlawing abortion. Abigail Pesta reports.

more: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/07/30/pro-life-personhood-activists-escalate-fight-file-petition-with-supreme-court.html
~~~~~~~~~~

ExSperm part of the one (the egg): You mean they really think we should have all the rights of a real alien person?

Exfollicle consciousness in egg: You better believe it! If we didn't have self-awareness, intelligence
and consciousness would we be talking? They see us as a person and as a person we can speak ..

"a language, make moral judgments, create literature and works of art, etc. Surely aliens with these properties
would be "persons"--which is to say that it would be morally wrong to buy or sell them as property the way
we do with dogs and cats or to otherwise use them for our own interests without taking into account the fact
that they are moral agents with interests that deserve the same respect and protection that ours do."
http://www.mind.ilstu.edu/curriculum/what_is_a_person/what_is_a_person.php

Ex?s: Oh ok now what? We can borrow some money, maybe buy a house?

Exf: Slow down, don't want to over invest in anything yet, we really don't
yet have "a rich flexibility to be able to cope with new situations." .. yet ..

* What is a person?

Author: David L. Anderson

This module was supported by National Science Foundation Grant #0127561.

What is a person? The English term, "person," is ambiguous. We often use it as a synonym for "human being." But surely that is not what we intend here. It is possible that there are aliens living on other planets that have the same cognitive abilities that we do (e.g. E.T: The Extraterrestrial or the famous "bar scene" from Star Wars). Imagine aliens that speak a language, make moral judgments, create literature and works of art, etc. Surely aliens with these properties would be "persons"--which is to say that it would be morally wrong to buy or sell them as property the way we do with dogs and cats or to otherwise use them for our own interests without taking into account the fact that they are moral agents with interests that deserve the same respect and protection that ours do.

Thus, one of our primary interests is to distinguish persons from pets and from property. A person is the kind of entity that has the moral right to make its own life-choices, to live its life without (unprovoked) interference from others. Property is the kind of thing that can be bought and sold, something I can "use" for my own interests. Of course, when it comes to animals there are serious moral constraints on how we may treat them. But we do not, in fact, give animals the same kind of autonomy that we accord persons. We buy and sell dogs and cats. And if we live in the city, we keep our pets "locked up" in the house, something that we would have no right to do to a person.

How, then, should we define "person" as a moral category? [Note: In the long run, we may decide that there is a non-normative concept of "person" that is equally important, and even conceptually prior to any moral concept. At the outset, however, the moral concept will be our focus.] Initially, we shall define a person as follows:

PERSON = "any entity that has the moral right of self-determination."

Many of us would be prepared to say, I think, that any entity judged to be a person would be the kind of thing that would deserve protection under the constitution of a just society. It might reasonably be argued that any such being would have the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

This raises the philosophical question: What properties must an entity possess to be a "person"? At the Mind Project, we are convinced that one of the best ways to learn about minds and persons is to attempt to build an artificial person, to build a machine that has a mind and that deserves the moral status of personhood. This is not to say that we believe that it will be possible anytime soon for undergraduates (or even experts in the field) to build a person. In fact, there is great disagreement among Mind Project researchers about whether it is possible, even in principle, to build a person -- or even a mind -- out of machine parts and computer programs. But that doesn't matter. Everyone at the Mind Project is convinced that it is a valuable educational enterprise to do our best to simulate minds and persons. In the very attempt, we learn more about the nature of the mind and about ourselves. At the very least, it forces us to probe our own concept of personhood. What are the properties necessary for being a person?

Many properties have been suggested as being necessary for being a person: Intelligence, the capacity to speak a language, creativity, the ability to make moral judgments, consciousness, free will, a soul, self-awareness . . and the list could go on almost indefinitely. Which properties do you think are individually necessary and jointly sufficient for being a person?
Star Trek: Is Commander Data a Person?

To begin our exploration of this question, we shall consider an interesting thesis, advanced in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation ("The Measure of a Man"). In that episode one of the main characters, an android called "Commander Data," is about to be removed from the Starship Enterprise to be dismantled and experimented upon. Data refuses to go, claiming to be a person with "rights" (presumably, this includes what we are calling the moral right of self-determination). He believes that it is immoral to experiment on him without his consent. His opponent, Commander Maddox, insists that Data is property, that he has no rights. A hearing is convened to settle the matter. During the trial, the attorneys consider the very same questions that concern us here:

* What is a person?
* Is it possible that a machine could be a person?

In the Star Trek episode, it is assumed that anything that is "sentient" should be granted the status of "personhood" and Commander Maddox suggests that being sentient requires that the following three conditions must be met:

Intelligence
Self-awareness
Consciousness

Captain Picard, who is representing Commander Data in the hearing, does not contest this definition of a person. Rather, he tries to convince the judge that Data possesses these properties (or at the least, that we are not justified in concluding that he lacks the properties).
What is intelligence?

Before turning to the specific arguments raised in the Star Trek episode, it will prove helpful to pause for a moment to consider the first property on the list, "intelligence." Could a computer be intelligent? Why or why not? A careful consideration of these questions requires a very close look both at computers and intelligence. And so we suggest that you first examine a few fascinating computer programs and think seriously about the questions, What is intelligence? and Is it possible for a machine to be intelligent? To help you reflect on these questions we recommend that you visit one of our modules on artificial intelligence.

Artificial intelligence: Can a machine think?
http://www.mind.ilstu.edu/curriculum/ai_can_a_machine_think/ai_machine_think_1.php

more: http://www.mind.ilstu.edu/curriculum/what_is_a_person/what_is_a_person.php

No, it i didn't read much of it either. Too heavy. .. chuckle ..